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You don't suppose Obama's trying to get him to say something really... REALLY inappropriate in retaliation, do you?

I mean, Trump hasn't exactly kept his cool these past couple weeks.

Trump doesn't need anyone egging him on to say something dumb. I mean the dumbest thing he's said so far is "I'm running for President."

I always knew this Birther thing had the potential to blow up in the Right's collective faces the more they pushed it. They had ample opportunity to drop it, but the moment he released the long form they turned into the political laughingstock of the nation.

You don't suppose Obama's trying to get him to say something really... REALLY inappropriate in retaliation, do you?

I mean, Trump hasn't exactly kept his cool these past couple weeks.

Trump doesn't need anyone egging him on to say something dumb. I mean the dumbest thing he's said so far is "I'm running for President."

I always knew this Birther thing had the potential to blow up in the Right's collective faces the more they pushed it. They had ample opportunity to drop it, but the moment he released the long form they turned into the political laughingstock of the nation.

No they didn't.

We like to think they did because it's become so ridiculous to us. But we read the news on occasion.

The birther story is not nearly as divisive as we wish it was, and considered that the first headline on FoxNews was "White House releases what is says is Obama's birth certificate" I don't think we're going to get the traction we really want to.

The fact is a little less than half the country will still vote Republican in 2012. We just have to hope they put someone so incredibly ridiculous on the ballot that it either motivates the Dems to get out and vote or scares the Republican voters into staying home.

I've heard this more than once or twice, but only on Fox news or related Conservative sites, so please correct me if this is not true.

Reportedly, republican presidential candidates tend to perform better in elections the more conservative they are. This was claimed as the main reason McCain lost, he wasn't conservative enough, so conservative voters just didn't vote, because their choices were "No vs. Hell No."

Is there any truth to this claim? W obviously was pretty conservative, as was Sr until he backpedaled on the no new taxes schtick. Reagan I'm less sure about, since that's a bit before my time, and I don't really know about whoever lost to Clinton in 96 (Dole? Buchanan?). I have no idea about candidates before Reagan. Was Nixon super conservative?

Id say its fairly untrue, but there is the appearance that the country is moving more towards the right, wihle polls are saying a lot of people support leftist measures like higher taxes on the rich, lower defense spending, etc.

Obama's opening was pretty good and I enjoyed the use of Ol Dirty Bastard.

Also, we are forced to vote. If we don't we get a $220 fine. How would the US fare if this system was in place there? Would your political landscape drastically change?

It would literally never happen, and if it did it would lead to riots and millions in property damages. Only about half the eligible voters care enough to vote currently, and we have it scheduled during the week so a lot of companies get away with not letting their employees off to vote even though legally they have to. Plus our public transportation is horrific so a ton of poor people would just have to suck up a 220 tax every two years. It would engender massive hate towards whoever implemented it.

But yeah, if implemented somehow, it would drastically change our political landscape. We'd probably skew a bit left in the long run, but in the short term because the Democrats would be the only people to even consider this they would get absolutely destroyed in elections.

What's with all the animosity towards the correspondent's dinner? I saw a clip of the 'birth video' and thought it was pretty funny. Sure, it's not edgy comedy, but it still elicits a giggle.

Some people find the idea of rich celebrities, politicians, and news media people getting together for an expensive dinner distasteful.

Personally, it's mostly the news media bit that bothers me, because it reinforces the "political reporters are one of US" thing that makes beltway political reporting so divorced from reality. It's hard to objectively report on your friends and drinking buddies being completely wrong about things.

What's with all the animosity towards the correspondent's dinner? I saw a clip of the 'birth video' and thought it was pretty funny. Sure, it's not edgy comedy, but it still elicits a giggle.

Some people find the idea of rich celebrities, politicians, and news media people getting together for an expensive dinner distasteful.

Personally, it's mostly the news media bit that bothers me, because it reinforces the "political reporters are one of US" thing that makes beltway political reporting so divorced from reality. It's hard to objectively report on your friends and drinking buddies being completely wrong about things.

Pretty much this. The press is supposed to be policing politicians, not schmoozing with them.

What's with all the animosity towards the correspondent's dinner? I saw a clip of the 'birth video' and thought it was pretty funny. Sure, it's not edgy comedy, but it still elicits a giggle.

Some people find the idea of rich celebrities, politicians, and news media people getting together for an expensive dinner distasteful.

Personally, it's mostly the news media bit that bothers me, because it reinforces the "political reporters are one of US" thing that makes beltway political reporting so divorced from reality. It's hard to objectively report on your friends and drinking buddies being completely wrong about things.

Pretty much this. The press is supposed to be policing politicians, not schmoozing with them.

That ship sailed ages ago. It has fallen to informed voters to help the people around them when political knowledge can be appropriately shared.

I don't think journalists are going to give politicians a pass on the whole just because the White House bought them a fancy dinner.

I mean, if there's a juicy story that embarrasses the administration, if one journalistic institution doesn't jump on it, another one will.

We repeatedly see things go completely unreported beyond cspan or random internet blogs. Heck, how many news orgs, even the left-ish ones, reported exactly WHY Ryan's budget was neither serious nor mathematically sound? The reality of it is that the dinner is not paying for the reporters, it's simply a symbol of what generally happens. The reporters seem to consider themselves part of the faux nobility we've made of congress/the WH, and absolutely despise either being wrong themselves, or pointing out that something is factually wrong coming from inside the beltway. They pretty much let the dumbest shit slide because if they dared to sit around constantly calling people out on it, they might lose access to stories later.

*grumble* Yeah, this ship sailed long ago, but I can still be bitchy about it. Our news media has about as much journalistic integrity as any other news aggregation system. They don't research and expand on stories, they just recite press releases and talk about how smart *insert news popular person here* is, because the press release said they were.

political journals that aren't politico are a little bolder and wonkier about analyzing political proposals and claims. if you are looking for it even a little, you can easily find 20 sources that really go through ryan's budget.

the big problem is that there isn't really a public appetite for it. fox news has shown that what people really want out of a new organization is a cheerleading squad for their team

The reporters seem to consider themselves part of the faux nobility we've made of congress/the WH, and absolutely despise either being wrong themselves, or pointing out that something is factually wrong coming from inside the beltway. They pretty much let the dumbest shit slide because if they dared to sit around constantly calling people out on it, they might lose access to stories later.

Over here, its on a Saturday usually, and almost every school and public bit of land generally has a polling station, so there is usually 1 within a 5km radius. We also do postal votes, which is what I generally do, they send you a ballot in the mail and you send it back. Hell you can even vote if you are outside your area very easily.

No one posted both parts yet? Boo, it was great stuff, Obama showed he had one hell of a sense of humor and lots of the jokes by all were classic, the jokes on Trump were priceless and his reaction to Meyers? Oh if he could stare a man to death he would have.

Over here, its on a Saturday usually, and almost every school and public bit of land generally has a polling station, so there is usually 1 within a 5km radius. We also do postal votes, which is what I generally do, they send you a ballot in the mail and you send it back. Hell you can even vote if you are outside your area very easily.

Hell even our military who are overseas at war get to vote.

Not voting is so foreign to me...

It varies by state. Some states (like mine) won't allow absentee voting unless you won't be in your county at all for the entire day.

Most states have laws stat say the electoral college has to vote according to the popular vote, but still a winner type all thing. Although I think one or two states say the electoral college representative has to split the votes according to the electorate (so 40% for candidate A and 60% for candidate B would create a 40/60 split of that state's electoral college votes).

No, two states (Nebraska and Maine) give two electoral votes to the state's popular vote winner and one vote to the popular vote winner in each Congressional district. Obama won Omaha in 2008, getting 1 of Nebraska's 5 electoral votes.

And my crack about black people is only a half truth. There are not enough polling stations in our cities so that lines there are long. It's particularly a problem in the poorer cities, or the poorer areas of cities, thus: badness. A lot of modern American electoral politics is creative disenfranchisement of people who tend to vote Democratic (young people, minorities) by Republicans.

To be fair, mandatory voting might also mean shifting the date to the weekend or making it a national holiday. With the right preparations, I could even see online voting being an option.

I don't see why not, I can do my taxes online and all kinds of other things. If voting was compulsory, its not like my social security number could be used twice and if I go to vote and it says "you've already voted" I know some shenanigans are in play

The biggest risk there is politically active people voting for all of their friends who don't care, and that's a giant almost insurmountable risk with online voting

No, two states (Nebraska and Maine) give two electoral votes to the state's popular vote winner and one vote to the popular vote winner in each Congressional district. Obama won Omaha in 2008, getting 1 of Nebraska's 5 electoral votes.

And my crack about black people is only a half truth. There are not enough polling stations in our cities so that lines there are long. It's particularly a problem in the poorer cities, or the poorer areas of cities, thus: badness. A lot of modern American electoral politics is creative disenfranchisement of people who tend to vote Democratic (young people, minorities) by Republicans.

I would say we just need the boomers to die, but many of the most insane politicians are younger